Asynchronous programming using Java
Where can I find asynchronous programming example using Java? I'm interested in finding patterns in asynchronous programming for building applications that present responsiveness (preventing applications that periodically hang and stop responding to user input and server applications that do not respond to client requests in a timely fashion) and scalability.
In particularly it will be helpful to see a sample which performs I/O operations (such as file reads/writes, Web requests, and database queries) and also has a lot of CPU processing involved like a shopping suggester in a webpage.
Which are the Java libraries which can help in determining when an application's responsiveness is unpredictable - because the application's thread performs I/O requests, the application is basically giving up control of the thread's processing to the I/O device (a hard drive, a network, or whatever)
Answer
In a GUI, you could use threads to perform background tasks.
Java supports non blocking I/O in the new I/O API (NIO).
If your question is more architecturally oriented, this book offers an in-depth discussion of asynchronous patterns: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, by Martin Fowler.